Guitarist Mark Knopfler will issue a new studio album entitled Down The Road Wherever through his own British Grove Records via Blue Note on November 16. The follow-up to 2015’s Tracker is the ninth solo LP from the former Dire Straits’ frontman. Knopfler shared the first single from the album, “Good On You Son.”
Knopfler tackles a wide range of topics over the course of the album including his “early days in Deptford with Dire Straits, a stray soccer fan lost in a strange town, the compulsion of a musician hitching home through the snow and a man out of time in his local greasy spoon diner” as per materials announcing Down The Road Wherever. “Down The Road Wherever is a line from [album track] ‘One Song At A Time.’ I remember my pal Chet Atkins once saying that he picked his way out of poverty ‘one song at a time,’ and it just stuck in my mind,” Knopfler said in a statement. “You get to an age where you’ve written quite a few songs. But Down The Road Wherever seems to be appropriate for me just because it’s what I’ve always done. I’ve always tried to make a record and also to keep my own geography happening in the songs.”
The guitarist recorded the album at British Grove Studios in London with Guy Fletcher. Knopfler’s band for the album features Jim Cox and Guy Fletcher on keyboards, Nigel Hitchcock on saxophone, Tom Walsh on trumpet, John McCusker on fiddle, Mike McGoldrick on whistle and flute, Glenn Worf on bass, Ian ‘Ianto’ Thomas on drums and Danny Cummings on percussion. Also contributing are guitarists Richard Bennett and Robbie McIntosh, trombonist Trevor Mires with Imelda May, Kris Drever, Lance Ellington, Beverley Skeete and Katie Kissoon all add backing vocals.
Listen to the single “Good On You Son”:
Down The Road Wherever Tracklist
- Trapper Man
- Back On The Dance Floor
- Nobody’s Child
- Just A Boy Away From Home
- When You Leave
- Good On You Son
- My Bacon Roll
- Nobody Does That
- Drovers’ Road*
- One Song At A Time
- Floating Away
- Slow Learner
- Heavy Up
- Rear View Mirror*
- Every Heart In The Room*
- Matchstick Man
* – Deluxe Edition CD Bonus Tracks
